Top Best Android Apps

Here are the Android Apps that I currently love. It’s not a complete list, but it’s a pretty good start.

Music and sound apps

Apps for when you’re traveling

TripIt: keep track of trips and plane flights for upcoming travel
Google Translate: translate tons of languages into tons of other languages. You can also do voice-recognition-to-text for English, then translate. This app will even do text-to-speech (voice synthesis) in many languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, and German.
Yelp: Find great restaurants nearby. Pro tip: scan the reviews to discover good dishes to order.
Compass: also handy when you’re traveling

Social apps

Twitter: official Twitter app for Android. This app can take empty/missing pictures in your contacts and populate your contacts’ pictures with their Twitter profile pictures, which is nice.
Seesmic: another fantastic Twitter app for Android
Google Buzz widget: an easy way to post to Buzz from your phone. By the way, I’ve noticed myself using Buzz more and more recently. When I started on Twitter, it took me several months to warm to the service. I think the same principle applies to Buzz. Buzz fills a nice niche between Twitter (microblogging) and regular blogging. It’s great when you want to throw out one quick idea, but you need more than 140 characters.

Cool demos / showing off

Google Skymap: move your phone to see where stars are. Like augmented reality for the sky.
Tricorder: shows all the different sensor readings of your phone. Includes accelerometer and tilt sensors, GPS and lat/lon, wifi, cell phone strength, compass, acoustic data–even solar activity.
Metal Detector: an app that detects metal. I still don’t know how it works (maybe it uses the magnetometer sensor that allows the compass), but it actually does work on many types of metal
Google Earth: most of the eye candy of Google Earth, but on your phone
LED Scroller: enter a message and your phone turns into a faux LED scrolling sign. Kinda low-tech, but impresses people more than I expected.
Hypnotic Spiral: makes a swirling spiral that you can control
The Schwartz Unsheathed: a light sword that makes cool sounds as you move your phone.

Signal strength apps

Wifi Analyzer: walk around and see a dynamic graph of wifi signal strength. Great for picking the right place to sit in an airport or cafe to get the best wifi signal
Antennas: shows a Google map with nearby antennas on it. Good for monitoring your phone’s signal strength
RF Signal Tracker (two versions, Donut and Eclair): another app to measure cell phone tower signal strength

QR Code and Barcode apps

Key Ring: scan your loyalty and other membership cards (e.g. Safeway, or your gym). Then use this app instead of carrying a bunch of membership cards around. I wish my phone could replace everything in my wallet.
App Referrer: shows all your installed apps. Click on an application and it will generate a large QR barcode on your screen that your friend can scan to install the same app.
Barcode Scanner: scan barcodes and QR codes. Very handy to install applications and visit urls. Note that the “Barcode Scanner” app (like App Referrer) can also show QR codes for applications — just press the options button. Can also show QR codes for contacts, bookmarks, and the clipboard.

Core apps / misc

My Tracks: records where you go using GPS and lets you upload a “track” to Google Maps
Navigation: get turn-by-turn directions as you drive
Movies: check movie times and see ratings from critics vs. audiences
Wheres My Droid: If you lose your phone and it’s in silent mode, this app will help you find your phone. I’ve tried Mobile Defense and that’s also very nice.
WordPress: Upload images and blog from your phone
Amazon.com: mobile shopping, plus add things to your Amazon wishlist
Shopper: Google app to scan barcodes and show product search results
BBC News: see the latest in world news. This is an unofficial widget.
News and Weather: customizable news, plus this app shows weather in your current location. Wish I could enter 3-4 cities and flick between weather reports though.
Weather: see the weather in multiple cities
Google Finance: check stock prices and news
Google Maps: see where you are